Wines £30-£45

The Gómez Cruzado winery dates back to 1886 when Angel Gómez de Arteche started to produce and bottle his own wine in Haro, at the very heart of Rioja Alta. This was in the day when the wine trade between Rioja and France passed along the Tudela-Bilbao line, and the key Rioja wineries were located around the station of Haro. The winery sits just 100m from the station to this day.

An impressive, classic Cairanne - about as good as Côtes du Rhône Villages gets! The nose is as explosive, plush and opulent as ever, layered with suggestions of exotic spices, cracked black pepper and streaked with vanilla. The palate is instantly appealing, polished and smooth on entry but steeped in depth and texture as the flavours swirl around, lengthen and delight. The lasting impression is satisfying - a big and opulent Grenache-driven wine with obvious oak quality, great structure, length and finish.

Areore is a field blend from the vineyard that surrounds the winery. Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tocai Friulano combine to offer a truly beautiful, very complex and really long wine. The grapes are pressed slowly and remain in the press overnight before starting co-fermentation next day. Open top stainless steel for the start of the fermentation then taken from the skins and moved to large oak once the initial phase is complete. Remains on fine lees in cask for 12 months but with no battonage, bottled and rested for a further 4 months before release.

Intense, deep ruby red colour. The nose is complex, with red fruits and notes of spice, as well as a great mineral content coming from the granite that constitutes the soil. In the mouth it is elegant, with good structure, lots of energy and good acidity. This makes it fresh, vibrant and juicy, as well as helping the wine in its potential in the bottle.

Good fruit concentration and weight with an open quality. Complex notes of plums and black cherries with a hint of cocoa and cloves.

It is at once full-bodied and sweet, a rather splendid marriage of generosity and finesse. Notes of plum and blackberry mingle with a whisper of tobacco and a courteous nod of clove, creating a harmony of fruit and spice that feels almost orchestral. The wine carries itself with a certain quiet authority—powerful, assured—and yet it closes with disarmingly soft, sweet murmurs that linger long after the last sip.

Maison Roche de Bellene

Weingut Horst Sauer is named after its owner. Both Horst and his daughter Sandra (who joined the winery in 2004) are winemakers at their 37 hectare estate in Franken - situated near Wurzburg (between Frankfurt and Nuremberg). Their vineyards are focused around the ‘Erste Lagen’ (prime) sites of Escherndorfer Lump and Escherndorfer Fürstenberg. Escherndorfer Lump is a steep south-facing slope protected from cold north-eastern winds, with a top layer of limestone-rich soil.

This is the exquisite Escherndorf am Lumpen - a ‘Grosse Lage’ vineyard plot (a classification given to the best German vineyard sites) first recorded in 1655. This is on the steepest slopes of the Escherndorfer Lump vineyard where the vines are over 30 years old.

Franken Riesling is considered to be the most masculine expression of the variety from Germany (in stark contrast to the femininity of the Mosel) yet from the grand cru (GG site) this full bodied, bone dry Riesling is impressive in its structure and concentration.

Selected from selected blocks from the best and oldest of Esk Valley's vineyards, the "Great Dirt" collection are veru much chief winemaker Gordon Russell's pet passion, made to age gracefully and showcase the terroir of the different sites

Aromas of rose petal, red berries and grilled meats are compelling. The wine is round and mouthfilling with a red fruited profile, but a firm tannic backbone provides complexity and length